Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih V (may Allah be his Helper) stated:
“It is the responsibility of parents to promote within themselves this message of peace, so that their children may also walk upon the path of righteousness and piety while conveying the message of peace. This habit should be instilled from an early age.
“Sometimes, it is observed that children do not greet others with Salam, and the parents say that the child is not greeting because of shyness or modesty. If, from an early age, the child is taught that there is no shyness in offering Salam, rather shyness should be shown in doing wrong, then through such guidance the child’s moral training will naturally take place.
“At times children are seen quarrelling among themselves. I have observed even in the courtyard of the Fazl Mosque that children, while playing, sometimes get into fights and even strike one another unjustly. At that moment there is no sense of shame or modesty. In reality, those are the actions in which modesty should act as a barrier—those are the things in which one should feel shame and refrain from wrongdoing.
“Therefore, in order to become recipients of Allah’s peace, instill the habit of greeting with Salam in children. This habit will only develop when elders take the initiative in greeting the younger ones with Salam.”
[Friday Sermon, May 25, 2007; Khutbat-e-Masroor, vol. 5, pp. 215–216, translated from Urdu]
